How is the believer’s life different from those around us? Does the Cross affect how we live?
The ram of consecration had been killed, its blood caught in a basin. What was to be done with it? Moses “took some of its blood and put it on the tip of Aaron’s right ear, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot” (Lev 8:23). He did the same to Aaron’s sons. The rest of the blood he sprinkled “all around on the altar” (v 24). How strange! What does this all mean? And what does it mean to us in the 21st Century? We know the blood was the visible evidence of the death of the offering, and the blood had left its mark on the priest’s ear, hand, and foot. The ear is the doorway into the mind; for the believer-priest, the death of God’s Son should make a difference in what I listen to, especially God’s Word. The thumb speaks of what we do in using our hands. Humans are unique in this: we have what is called an opposable thumb. That means we are able, as the experts say, “to simultaneously flex, abduct and medially rotate the thumb so as to bring its tip into opposition with the tips of any of the other digits.” It gives us the dexterity to grasp and hold things. So, like the blood on the priest’s thumb, the cross of Christ should clearly influence what I do and what I hold onto. Paul exhorts workers to “be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things” (Titus 2:9-10). People notice if the shadow of the Cross falls across my work habits! And the big toe? That’s what gives us balance in our walk. In all these, our thoughts and deeds and walk, Christ’s death should leave its mark, “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor 6:20).